Surfing and Site
Guide
Internet World Stats

Hello and welcome to Internet World Stats, the premier website for international Internet usage
statistics, e-commerce market research, internet marketing news, travel stats, world population and
world telecommunications information. Here you will find current statistical Internet usage data and
population figures for over 251 countries and world regions, consolidated from various periodic
surveys and official country user records. This huge amount of information is processed and then
published in a unique and practical way, in the form of statistical tables and original graphics.

The notes below provide a brief explanation of the architecture and structure of this website, as
well as its main features. Reading the following notes will save your time navigating and will also
help you to achieve the maximum benefits from your visit to this web site.

DATA is simply the facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis. Stats is an
abbreviation for the English word statistics. By statistics, we mean the branch of mathematics dealing with the
collection, classification, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of masses of numerical data,
in the form of a collection of quantitative data.

The Internet World Stats web site (IWS for short) is a useful tool for Internet market research. It is
divided into several sections, each one providing specific market research information. Most web
pages have content links on the left hand side column and all pages have a user friendly web surfing
menu at the bottom of each page. Additionally, a complete website content menu (Site Map) has
been included to help you find subjects real fast. Just four (4) simple help recommendations for your
fast and easy navigation of the IWS website:

(1) Bookmark this website to find it again. Simply press on your keyboard
"control"+"D" (most browsers will open their bookmark window in response).
(2) To see all the content links, just go to the Site Map and the content menu will open in a
new window. Click on the link of your interest, or write your query in the Google search box, located at the bottom
of the menu.
(3) Please remember to always refresh the web pages you are viewing, in order to assure that
you are viewing the latest stats version and display the newest information. At IWS content is updated frequently. We believe that our visitors
don't like out-dated information, neither do we. New content pages overwrite the previous content.
(4) A weekly Newsletter is available for you to keep up with the website updates and changes, new Internet
stats, and market research topics.
Get your free subscription here:

We hope that you enjoy navigating
our website and find its content useful. Your feedback
with ideas, suggestions, critiques and contributions is welcomed
and appreciated. To reach us, simply write an email to:
"support" at "internetworldstats" dot "com"
This Site Surfing Guide features the following
information:

Here is a search
guide for quickly finding selected content in this
website:

1. INTERNET USAGE AND WORLD
POPULATION STATISTICS
The World Population and Internet User information is the main
demographic content for this web site. It has been collected by
our webmaster since 2000 and is displayed in the statistics
pages. There are seven individual statistical tables for each of
the six main geographical regions of the world (Africa, America,
Asia, Europe, Middle East, and Oceania), and a general world
summary page calledthe big picture.

Additionally, a top Internet usage countries table, a most
penetrated countries table, a most populated countries table and
a unique table containing Internet usage by languages are
included. Other analysis are being added periodically, for
example: Facebook usage, Spanish speakers, etc. For information
on the sources, definitions, the methodology and details about
the data displayed please read the following notes.

1.1 INTERNET USAGE
Before we can measure or forecast Internet Usage, we must first
answer a basic question: Who is an Internet user? Research
firms, analysts, consultancies and other sources all disagree on
how to answer this seemingly simple question.

The ITU subscribes to the definition of an Internet user as
someone aged 2 years old and above, who went online in the past
30 days. The US Department of Commerce, in contrast, defines
Internet users as those 3 years or older who 'currently use' the
Internet. The CNNIC defines the Internet user as a Chinese
citizen, aged 6 or above, who uses the Internet at least one hour
per week.

Other market researchers and market research organizations have
their own definitions. For example, Nielsen Online in its
reports presents two figures for the Internet users: the first is
"Active Internet User", which is defined as the number of users
that viewed the Internet at least once during the last month, and
the other figure is, of course, the total universe estimate of
Internet users in a country, region, or city.

We believe that a definition must be as general and as simple as
possible. Therefore, for analyzing and comparing Internet users
on a global scale, IWS adopts as its benchmark a broad
definition and defines an Internet User as anyone currently in
capacity to use the Internet. In our opinion, there are only
two (2) requirements for a person to be considered an Internet
User:
(1) The person must haveavailable accessto an Internet connection point, and
(2) The person must have thebasic knowledgerequired to use web technology.

That's it. No need to make complex something that is really quite
simple. In many Third World countries one same Internet
connection may be shared by many individual users. Due to this
reason, Internet users generally outnumber the amount of Internet
access subscribers and also outnumber the telephone lines
available in each country.

The Internet today offers users more options for access, for
example: mobile, G2, G3, and so forth. Our definition and stats
(statistics) consider ALL the ways a user or a subscriber
connects. Internet World Stats numbers represent the "universe"
of Internet users in any region, country or territory. These
figures are useful for estimating Internet market size at a
global, regional or local scale.

1.2 INTERNET
GROWTHIn order to establish the relative
growth rate of the Internet on a global basis, we compare the
current (latest) Internet usage figures for each country or
region with the year 2000, our baseline year for Internet usage
figures, and express this ratio as a percentage. For information
on the Historic Internet Growth dataplease
click here,a new page will open. For the
Current Internet World Usage Statistics,visit this
page.

1.3 INTERNET
PENETRATION RATE
The Internet Penetration Rate corresponds to the percentage of
the total population of a given country or region that uses the
Internet. Internet users are defined in 1.1. No adjustments have
been made for infants or illiteracy in the Internet penetration
rate calculations. Indeed very few countries have 100% literacy,
Norway is one of them. Regarding the children, they are early
adopters, when given the chance to surf the Internet.

For countries with penetration rates above 50%, the data
will be marked in bold letters in the corresponding pages.
The list of the countries with Internet Penetration Rates over
50% may be foundhere. At Internet World Stats we support the 50x15
Initiative and invite you to do so also. Read about this
important project for the future growth of the Internet at
theDigital Dividepage.

1.4 WORLD
POPULATION
It is important to point out that Internet usage and population
data go hand in hand. In order to determine the Internet
Penetration Rate (IPR) for each country and region of the
world we require accurate and up-to-date demographic data.
As of March 1st, 2017, we will use demographic (population)
based on data published by the United Nations (UN), and contained
in their excellent website at:
United Nations - Population Division,
where you can also find detailed demographic information for the world and
for all the countries of the world.

Special note on China: Hong Kong (Xianggang) and
Macao (Aomen) are both part of China, but these
territories as well as Taiwan are reported separately for
Internet Usage Statistical purposes. Therefore the total
estimated population for China mainland has been adjusted
accordingly in our statistical tables and charts.

Special note on Mexico: For statistical reasons, and
following the United Nations Statistical Department, Mexico has
been included together with the seven Central American countries.
SeeUnited Nations Statistics
Divisionmethods
and classifications of macro geographical (continental) regions,
geographical sub-regions, and selected economic and other groupings. Please
take note that Greenland has been included in North America.

Special note on the term: Latin America and the Caribbean:
this term is used here in its broad sense and refers to all the geographic
part of the Americas south of the United States, and includes English-speaking
countries such as Belize, in Central America, Falkland Islands in
South America, as well as Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana. For
further information on contemporary and traditional usage of the
term Latin America, please seeLatin America.

Special note on Country Codes: For practical reasons, and
following a logical approach, we use and recommend the use of
standardized symbols to identify the various countries. For this purpose,
ISO-3166 is the norm we follow, see the International Organization Statistics
Division.
This ISO-standard is used throughout all the IWS website, since its creation in 2001.

1.5 SOURCES FOR
THE STATISTICS
The data displayed at Internet World Stats comes from various
information sources: mainly from the followingData Research
Sourcesand the
following organizations: The Nielsen Company, from theInternational Telecommunications Union(ITU). Additional sources are
theGfK Group, theCIA Fact
Book, local NIC,
local ISP, other public such as official Internet regulating
agencies, and direct information from trustworthy and reliable
research private sources. Nielsen Onlines's data corresponds to
the home plus work panel current digital media total universe
estimate. For growth comparison purposes, usage stats fromITUfor the
year 2000 are utilized as "benchmark", when available, as
explained above in 1.2.

The Nielsen Companyis a global standard for
Internet audience measurement and analysis and is the industry's
premier source for online advertising intelligence. This service
covers 70 percent of the world's Internet usage (previously known
as Nielsen//NetRatings) offers syndicated Internet and digital
media research reports and custom-tailored data to help companies
gain valuable insight into their business. For more information,
please visitThe Nielsen
Company.

The Internet usage and population data presented here are the
best estimates available, however a reasonable margin of error
should be allowed for. Please refer to ourDisclaimerin 1.9.

1.6 COUNTRY CODES
The ISO 3166-1 English short country names and codes are used in
the IWS website.
As of 23 July 2003 the ISO 3166-1 country code elements for
Serbia and Montenegro are:

CS(Alpha-2 code)SCG(Alpha-3 code)891(Numeric-3 code)

The code elements YU and YUG representing Yugoslavia are obsolete
now, and their use in applications of ISO 3166-1 should be phased
out. The deletion of Yugoslavia from ISO 3166-1 also leads to the
exclusion of the name in ISO 3166-3. Read about the official ISO country
listhere.

1.7 GROSS NATIONAL INCOME (GNI) World Bank Atlas
Method

In calculating Gross
National Income (GNI—formerly referred to as GNP) and GNI
per capita in U.S. dollars for certain operational purposes,
theWorld Bankuses the Atlas conversion factor. The
purpose of theAtlas conversion factoris to reduce the impact of
exchange rate fluctuations in the cross-country comparison of
national incomes.

Following current statistical practice,
the World Bank has recently adopted the new terminology in line
with the 1993 System of National Accounts (SNA). The changes in
terms are listed below.

Previous terminology

New terminology

Gross national product, GNP

Gross national income, GNI

GNP per capita

GNI per capita

Private consumption

Household final consumption
expenditure

General government
consumption

General government final consumption
expenditure

Gross domestic investment

Gross capital formation

Many countries continue to
compile their national accounts according to the 1968 SNA, but
more and more are adopting the 1993 SNA. A few low-income
countries still use concepts from older SNA guidelines, including
valuations such as factor cost, in describing major economic
aggregates. In general, the definitions under the 1993 SNA
guidelines for these indicators remain as before, and only the
terminology has changed. Exceptions are: GNI in constant prices,
which differs from GNP in that it also includes terms of trade
adjustment; and gross capital formation which now includes a
third category of capital formation: net acquisition of
valuables. Included in gross capital formation under the 1993 SNA
are capital outlays on defense establishments that may be used by
the general public, such as schools, airfields, and hospitals.
These expenses were treated as consumption in the earlier version
of the SNA.

1.8
REPRODUCTION OF THE STATISTICS
The content of this website is intellectual property of its
creator, Enrique De Argaez. Data from this web site may be used
freely for academic and educational use only, by teachers for classes
or as course material, citing and giving due credit to the original data
source and establishing an active link back towww.internetworldstats.com. For commercial use, for business purposes, in
publicity or other for profit use, the use of our material such
as graphs, tables, and statistics requires a copyright licence or
permission.

PERMISSIONS:
Please keep in mind that all the content of this website is covered by Copyright Law
and International Treaties. All the Copyright Permission requests and License
Inquiries should be sent directly tocopyrights at(@) internetworldstats.com. For details,
see the copyrights page.

Kindly provide as much information as possible to help us review
your permission request. This should include your publication title,
author(s), page numbers, print runs, all rights and languages required
along with a copy of the material as you wish to use it. We will then
endeavour to respond as quickly as possible to discuss your permission
requirements.

1.9 DISCLAIMERS
Most of the data in this site comes from independent sources,
found displayed freely in the wide world web. Here is a sample of
ourinformation sources. Other data has been investigated and retrieved
directly by our staff. All the information has been consolidated
by IWS, giving due credit to the corresponding original
sources when these are known, and establishing a link back if
possible. IWS provides and published the data and displays
statistics in good faith but does not guarantee the accuracy or
provenience. Likewise IWS is not responsible for the use
given to this information. The Internet usage and population data
are best estimates available and a reasonable margin of error
should be allowed for, as is usual for all statistical work.

In the event that any owner of the information cited or the
sources opposes the publication of specific data, please let us
know by advising our webmaster. We will promptly remove said data
from our web site.

Visitors please take note that for statistical purposes Mexico
has been included in the Central American countries statistics,
according to theUnited Nations Statistics
Divisionmethods
and classifications of macro geographical (continental) regions,
geographical sub-regions, and selected economic and other
groupings. Turkey is included in the European statistics.

The designations employed and the presentation of material at
this site do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever
on our part concerning the legal status of any country,
territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the
delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

The assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for
statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption
regarding political or other affiliation of countries or
territories by the United Nations or by this web page.

To this date, no confirmed figures for Internet Usage have been
found for the following regions and territories of the world,
some are very small and some are uninhabited. This does not
affect significantly the overall statistical results:

Your forwarding of information on Internet Usage for the above
locations will be appreciated indeed.

Hypertext Links
This site contains links to sites operated by third parties over
which we have no control. IWS (Internet World Stats) makes
no representations whatsoever about any other Web site that you
may access through this one. Links imply neither that IWS
is affiliated with or otherwise endorses any third parties nor
that it is legally authorized to use any trademark, trade name,
logo, or copyright symbol displayed in or accessible through the
links, or that any linked site is authorized to use any
trademark, trade name, logo, or copyright symbol of
IWS.

FTC DISCLAIMER ON ADVERTISING
This site contains affiliate links, which means we receive monetary compensation
from third parties, if you make a purchase using the links and banners on this
website to buy products and services. These commissions help cover the cost of
operating the website, such as hosting, designs, mainenance and research.

2.REGIONAL AND
INDIVIDUAL COUNTRY DIRECTORYThe
second statistical section is the world regional country pages,
an international directory featuring over 245 countries and
regions of the world, organized into several hundreds of web
pages. Individual country and regional pages feature maps,
profiles, area information, and links to local search directories
for the corresponding countries and regions.

Starting in 2010, the Individual country pages were expanded
in order to include, in addition to the Internet Indicators,
telecommunication industry news summaries, and Facebook country
data and news. These changes will take time and work to complete,
because this additional information at Internet World Stats dot
com involves updating and creating nearly one thousand pages of
new content, and uploading it to the IWS website.

TIP: the best way to find a specific country is to go directly to
thealphabetical
country listand
from there to click on the specific country name. This
alphabetical country list has been enhanced with the symbol for
each country or region, the current number of Internet users and penetration rate,
the population and the land size.

2.1 COUNTRY DATA AND SOCIAL WEB
Each country (or region) entry has a header or data box with the
following specific information:
Country flag.
Country name.
ISO 3166 short code.
Current estimated population for corresponding mid-year.
Area in square kilometers (sq km) of the country or
territory.
Country or territory capital city.
Capital city population.
Internet users of the country or region.
Date and source of the information.
Internet penetration for the country. This line will
be in bold for countries or regions where the penetration rate
is over 50%.Facebook subscribers
(or users) are shown in green, when available.
In the extent that Facebook (Social Web) usage data becomes
available, this
information will be included in each country data box. Number of
Internet
users comes from various sources: ITU, each country's official
telecommunications regulating agencies, local market research
companies and from other trustworthy independent survey
sources.

2.2 COUNTRY
LISTS
The best way to quickly find any one of the 233+ countries
included in the site is to go to the countryalphabetical
list, and to click
on the country name. A country list bygeographical areasis also available. Another
country list is available showing the Country Median Age for
2018 "World
Median Age"
data. A list is also being developed for the United States.

The Median Country Age is a quick reference for governments,
international development agencies, non-governmental
organizations and the private sector to assess national
conditions regarding the population distibution
in each country.

Special note on Mexico and
Turkey: For statistical purposes and consistency, and no
other reasons, Mexico is included in the Central American
countries statistics, according to theUnited Nations Statistics
Divisionmethods
and classifications of macro geographical (continental) regions,
geographical sub-regions, and selected economic and other
groupings. Turkey has been included in theEuropean Countriesas of October, 2005 because it
is a candidate state for joining the European Union.

2.3 COMPOSITION
OF MACRO GEOGRAPHICAL (CONTINENTAL) REGIONS
For the grouping of the countries and regions included in this
web site we follow the United Nations Department of Economical
and Social Affairs Classification, which may beseen
here.
Special Note on country name modifications:

Current
Name

Symbol

Old Name

Bonaire

.bq

previously listed as Netherland
Antilles (.an)

Burkina Faso

.bf

previously listed as Upper
Volta

Cambodia

.kh

previously listed as
Democratic Kampuchea

Cote d'Ivoire

.ci

previously listed as Ivory
Coast

Curaçao

.cw

previously listed as Netherland
Antilles (.an)

Democratic Republic
of the Congo

.cd

previously listed as
Zaire

Eswatini

.sz

previously listed as
Swaziland

Hong Kong SAR

.hk

Hong Kong is a Special
Administrative Region of China

Macao SAR

.mo

Macaois a Special Administrative Region of
China

Montenegro

.me

previously listed as Serbia
and Montenegro, SC

Myanmar

.mm

previously listed as
Burma

North Macedonia

.mk

previously listed as
Macedonia, FYRM

Serbia

.rs

previously listed as Serbia
and Montenegro (.sc)

Sri Lanka

.lk

previously listed as
Ceilan

South Sudan

.ss

new country, previously part of
Sudan

Timor-Leste

.tp

previously listed as East
Timor

2.4 ECONOMIC
DATA
The main source for economic data and statistics is the
World Bank.
Gross National Income per capita (GNI p.c.) is shown for most
countries, if available. Detailshere.

2.5 BROADBAND
DATA
Broadband or high speed Internet is generally defined as a
transmission capacity that is faster than primary rate ISDN, at
1.5 or 2.0 Mbit/s. 256 kbit/s is generally taken as the minimum
speed, according to Recommendation I.113 of the ITU
Standardization Sector. In some countries 128 kbit/s is taken as
the minimum speed and in some statistics ISDN usage is included
in the broadband figures.

Broadband Internet access worldwide is mainly by means of Cable
or DSL lines. This type of access is gaining more subscribers
each day. IWS is now publishing broadband download speed data
for each country or region of the world, as such figures become
available from Ookla.
See current broadband datahere.

2.6 LANGUAGE
DATA
The Internet is aGlobal Villagewith no physical frontiers, however it is
divided by the different languages spoken in each country or
region. We have researched the top ten languages spoken by the
Internet Users and published this information. People speaking
the same language show an inclination to form their own online
community no matter what country they happen to live in. The
latest estimated number of people online in each major language
group may be seenhere.

2.7 SOCIAL WEB DATA
The most successful social web in Internet, having reached more
than 2,150 million subscribers, is undoubttedly Facebook. We have
researched the Facebook users worldwide and published this
information in the regional pages. The number of Facebook
subscribers for each country has been updated in December 31, 2017.
The source for much of the data has been the excellent data curated
by We Are Social updated in 2018. You can see the information
in the following reportWe Are Social, the latest available.

3.
MARKET RESEARCH HELP
The statistics and demographic information displayed constitute
valuable information for anyone involved in Internet Market
Research. Most of our content is free, for personal use as well
as for work purposes. Under each individual country a link has
been included to the official statistics page for that country
(in English when available). Additional useful Market Research
links, guides, and tips may be found in ourmarket research
page.

A sister website has been created and may be found atall about market
research.
This website features additional market research information,
resources and tools.

4.
THE IWS NEWSLETTER - Privacy PolicySubscribe to receive free
information regarding changes in the Internet Usage and World
Population Statistics as well as free Internet Market Research
data, site update news and other information of interest. Please
subscribe to the Internet World Stats monthly Newsletter, it's
free. Your name and address will be kept confidential and
private. Under no circumstances do we share, rent or sell a
subscriber's email address.Click here to get your free subscription.

The IWS Newsletter has over
8,000 subscribers from 198 countries. Circulation is growing
daily.Free Subscription Here

The Internet Coaching Free
LibraryThe
object of this section is to offer free help, tips, advice, and
guidence (coaching) about the Internet to the visitors of our
website. It is a free resource and features useful articles and
links on the subjects listed there:

There are several pages
containing articles about Search Engines and coaching on this
subject, refering to Internet Marketing. The pages and links
below will help find them. Each page name contains the
description of the content:

United Nations Statistical
DivisionWe believe that high quality
international statistics, accessible for all, are a fundamental
element of global information systems, and that to maintain the
trust in international statistics, their production is to be
impartial and strictly based on the highest professional
standards. In this order of ideas we try to apply good practices
and standards as recommended by the UN Statistical Division.

The
Software Gallery
This section features several recommended software programs.
You are invited to visit the page and make use of the free
trials.
Again, your support o, we try to apply the good practices as
contains links to statisticsf the sponsors helps keep this
website free.

Pop-Unders Gone
All pop-unders on this site have been removed. Visitors
will
now experience a more enjoyable navigation during their
visit.
No more pop-unders will show up in the future. Sometimes the
cache your PC keeps in old versions of the pages you visited,
so be sure to refresh any old IWS pages to be pop-under
free

IWS believes that you should never be tricked into installing
software on your computer. We also believe that external
pop-ups, pop-unders, and exit-pops are all intrusive and
annoying to the Internet user.

Browser Tips:
If you want a good and useful web browser,
get Chrome, Google's free and fast browser.

Another good alternative we recommend to block pop-ups
and pop-unders, and decrease the spyware and virus you
pick up while surfing the web, is to use a browser that
stops the pops and is safe and secure like the newMozilla Foundation
Firefox.
Already over 500 million
free copies of Firefox have been downloaded. We also
suggest usingOpera, another fast browser that blocks
all the pop-ups and pop-unders and is free to download.

Other Internet Explorer compatible browsers are: Bing, and Maxthon, both are freeware and make
use of the basic Microsoft Internet Explorer engine.

NEW AND OLD BLOG POSTS
A new Blog calledInternet Stats Todayhas been created to report new stats, website changes,
post Internet news and inform updates regarding statistics at the site,
it is a useful resource.

The old blog posts are still available, and contain interesting historic data,
click here to see theOld Blog, and a new window will open with the web log.

8. ABREVIATIONS
USED IN THIS WEBSITE
CIA = The US Central Intelligence Agency

C-I-A = The Computer Industry Almanac

EMEA = Generally refers to the Europe, Middle East, and Africa
region

FB = Facebook
G8 = Refers to the G8 Group of countries, integrated by Canada,
France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, United Kingdom and United
States.

ITU = International Telecommunications Union.

IWS = Internet World Stats.

" GNI p.c. " is an economic indicator that means
"Gross National Income Per Capita". It corresponds to the
country's Gross Income divided by its total population
(number of inhabitants). It is the old GNP per capita.

MENA = Refers to Middle East plus North of Africa countries.

NIC = Network Information Center, part of the Domain Name System
(DNS) of the Internet.

The internetworldstats.com is a free Directory for Internet
Market Research. Its aim is to make the Internet Usage Statistics
available to the business community, the academic community, and
to the general public. At present IWS has stats for over
243 countries and selected regions of the world. These statistics
have been searched for, reviewed, and consolidated from various
periodic surveys and other public information sources available
in the Internet.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, this site is
frequently modified with updates whenever new statistics become
available, and the old data is removed. If you have any comments
regarding this site or if you wish to suggest additional
statistics or topics, please feel free to send us an eMail
message addressed to:
"editor" at(@) "internetworldstats.com"

Thank you for visiting the Internet World Stats web
site!

Website
Metrics

About
UsThe Internet World Stats web site was created on
March 25, 2002 by Enrique de Argaez, MBA, PE, who is the editor,
webmaster and owner. He speaks fluent English and Spanish. His current
activities include Internet Market Research, Internet Publishing
and consulting work. He can be located at Carrera 7-B # 134-B-66, in the city of Bogota, Colombia.
His telephone number in Colombia is: +57-1-388-6325 and his mobile phone is: +57 305-314-2748
and his Skype call address(ID) is: "enrique.de.argaez"

Copyright
PermissionsAll Copyright Permission requests and License
inquiries should be sent directly to copyrights at(@) internetworldstats.com.
For details, see the copyrights page.

The Miniwatts Marketing
Group is the International Division of Miniwatts de Colombia
Ltda. "Miniwatts" is a limited liability company (LLC)
legally established and registered since April 24, 1997 at the
Bogota Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Argaez is a partner
and also the Managing Director of Miniwatts de Colombia Ltda. Here is a partial list
of the websites owned by the Miniwatts Marketing Group and or
Enrique De Argaez: